Mets can look to Atlanta for blueprint on handling Francisco Alvarez

Francisco Alvarez is among the Mets’ more fascinating figures heading into 2023, a premier prospect who represents probably the best internal hope for a lineup power boost but who is not — to this point — guaranteed a spot in the majors to open the season.

So as tricky as it might be to work in on a full-time basis a 21-year-old catcher whose prolific hitting propelled him through the minor leagues faster than he could develop defensively, the Mets have a template of sorts from within the division to consider: Atlanta and William Contreras.

The comparison is not exact, but the bottom line is this: Contreras caught some of the time and hit a lot of the time, and that worked out wonderfully for Atlanta. The team found a way to put Contreras’ offensive abilities to use while allowing him to ease into and learn about the grind of being a big-league backstop.

The Mets have questions at catcher and DH. With the Atlanta/Contreras model or a version of it, Alvarez can be part of the answer at both.

“Having a young guy behind the plate is almost like buying a brand new glove,” Atlanta general manager Alex Anthopoulos said recently, speaking about his own team. “The glove is beautiful, it’s awesome. But it’s going to be a bit of grind initially to break it in, right?”

The background on Contreras: Atlanta tried breaking him in in 2021, when injuries to the team’s other catchers forced Contreras into more games than he otherwise would have played. He performed poorly behind and at the plate. Then he spent most of April 2022 in Triple-A, but backup Manny Pina’s season-ending wrist injury thrust the 24-year-old Contreras back into the major-league plans by the end of the month.

Atlanta’s approach this time was to not put the same heavy load on Contreras. They already had a strong all-around starting catcher in Travis d’Arnaud — a luxury the Mets can’t claim — so Contreras evolved into a super backup. He became an All-Star at DH alongside d’Arnaud at catcher.

“It worked out way better than we could’ve thought,” Anthopoulos said.

Contreras wound up starting 88 games, including 57 at catcher and 31 at DH, and accrued 376 plate appearances. He hit. 278 with a .860 OPS and 20 home runs.

D’Arnaud started 104 games, including 99 at catcher and five at DH, and accrued 426 plate appearances. He hit .268 with a .791 OPS and 18 home runs.

Atlanta was at or near the top of the catcher leaderboards for all major offensive statistics. (The Mets, suffice to say, were not.)

Without the pressure and workload of catching all the time, Contreras excelled.

“There’s just so much we put on catchers today,” Anthopoulos said. “I like the slow break-in, don’t put too much on them. Seeing Contreras go from ’21 to ’22, night and day. All of our guys are saying, ‘man, his game-calling is awesome.’ Everything had gotten better, and you’re not overwhelming him with ‘go catch five out of six, go hit, go do this, go do that’ and flooding him with a ton of information.”

With Alvarez, the Mets’ hope is that they have their long-term catcher. But the short-term point of him being in the majors — including a cameo at the end of last season — is his bat.

What if Alvarez received everyday at-bats as, say, the primary DH and the backup catcher? He would be the priority at both, with others at those positions filling in around him.

Though they aren’t nearly d’Arnaud, Tomas Nido and/or James McCann still would play a lot, affording the Mets a defensively adept (if light-hitting) catcher most games. General manager Billy Eppler said he is open to putting three catchers on the active roster. McCann in particular has expressed an interest in mentoring Alvarez, with whom he was impressed when they worked together in spring training and during McCann’s minor-league rehab assignment.

When Alvarez catches — a couple of times per week perhaps, maybe more often as the season progresses — any of several other guys can be the DH for the day, from Daniel Vogelbach and Darin Ruf (both of whom are still on the roster) to fellow prospects Mark Vientos and Brett Baty (if they’re on the team) to Pete Alonso and other fielders getting the half-day off.

“If you can go really slowly,” Anthopoulos said, “I think it’s a good thing.”